Town of Gawler
Town of Gawler | |||||||||||||
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| Country | Australia | ||||||||||||
| State | South Australia | ||||||||||||
| Region | Barossa, Light and Lower North | ||||||||||||
| Established | 1857 | ||||||||||||
| Council seat | Gawler | ||||||||||||
| Government | |||||||||||||
| • Mayor | Nathan Shanks | ||||||||||||
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| Area | |||||||||||||
• Total | 41.1 km2 (15.9 sq mi) | ||||||||||||
| Website | Town of Gawler | ||||||||||||
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The Town of Gawler is a local government area located north of Adelaide city centre in South Australia containing Gawler and its suburbs. The corporate town was established in 1857 due to the township's residents' dissatisfaction at being governed by three different district councils.
The Town of Gawler is located within the officially declared boundaries of the Adelaide metropolitan area. As of 2001 1.0% of the population were Indigenous Australian, and 76.3% were born in Australia.
The current mayor of Gawler is Nathan Shanks, who was elected in 2025 following the resignation of long-serving mayor Karen Redman on 30 May 2025.
Shanks was first elected to the Town of Gawler Council as an Area Councillor in 2018. He later served as Deputy Mayor from 2022–2023 and again from 2024–2025, before stepping into the role of Acting Mayor between June and September 2025. His election as Mayor in late 2025 marked the continuation of his long-standing involvement in local government and community leadership.
Redman, who had served as mayor since 2014, was the first elected female mayor in Gawler’s history and was re-elected for further terms in 2018 and 2022 before her resignation in 2025.